Crashing Into You (16 page)

The color drained from Evan’s
face. He pursed his lips, looked down at the table. “Yeah, well, not all of us
could be so lucky.”

I stared at him. “Really?
What happened?”

He pulled down on his collar,
and said, “Is it kind of stuffy in here, or is it just me?”

It wasn’t. I was thinking the
same thing. “It's not just you.”

“You want to take a walk?”

We went out the side exit and
headed toward the sandy beach a block down. Evan guided me toward the water,
but stopped far enough away so that he couldn’t push me in. We started walking
along the beach.

“So what'd you mean back
there?” I asked. I finally took a sip of my coffee drink. A little sweet, but
not bad.

“Back there when?”

“You said, not all of us
could be so lucky. Did something happen between you and Melanie? Before she
died?”

He put his hands behind his
head. “I haven't told very many people this, but... I yelled at her. The last
time I saw her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was bad. I feel
sick about the whole thing, but that, more than anything, keeps me up at
night.”

I stepped closer to him. “You
can’t blame yourself, Evan. You didn’t know what was gonna happen.”

He kept his focus on the
ocean tide, and only glanced at me when I was the one doing the talking. “I’d
never yelled at her before, in all those months of dating. I do it the fucking
night she dies.” He picked up a rock and didn’t so much skip it into the water,
as launch it as far out as possible.
 

“The same night?” I crossed
my arms. “Wait, so you did go to the party.”

“Yeah. For about five minutes.”

“After we…”

“Yes.”

I stopped. Tapped my foot against
the sand.

He turned around. “What?
What’s the matter?”

“I just... I didn't know you
were there, that’s all. Did you see it up close? How much she was drinking?” A
huge wave crashed against the sand to the right of me, but I stayed
concentrated on Evan. “Wait a second. If you were there, why didn’t you try to
stop her?”

Evan tipped his head to the
left. Opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. “I, uhh…” he
finally said. “The thing is…” He bit down on his bottom lip.

Then Evan did something I had
never seen him do before: he started to cry, right in front of me.

“Evan?” I put my arm around
his back. “Oh, Evan. Are you all right?”

He wiped a tear from his
cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Don't be. Tell me,” I said.
“Tell me what happened.” I pulled him to the sand, and scooted back, just
enough so that the water wouldn’t touch us.

Evan set his drink down, and
rested his arms over his bent knees. “She was already drunk. Already pretty
gone, when I showed up. I felt bad about what I did, with you. I wanted to make
things right with her.”

I nodded. I didn’t really
know what to say to that.

“But I get there, and she’s
surrounded by all these girls,
and
boys, mostly strangers. She’s got a mixed drink in one hand, an empty shot
glass in the other. She was sweating, slurring her words, bouncing around the
room like she was a fucking two-year-old.”

“But why?
Why
did she want to get that drunk?” I
searched my brain. “It’s almost as if…”

“…she knew about us,” he
said, finishing my sentence.

“But Evan, there
was
no us.”

“She knew, though. She had
to. She wasn’t stupid.”

“Knew what?” I waited for his
response, in agonizing silence.

“That I had a crush on you.”

I rested my hands against the
sand, and tried not to show any sign of joy in his moment of melancholy. I
waited for him to follow up with something. Maybe ask me how I felt about him.
What was I going to say? That I had wanted him ever since the moment I laid
eyes on him? That I wanted him before the funeral,
and
after?

“She was so good to me, and
she needed me that night,” he said. “Whatever pain she was feeling, I should’ve
been there for her. So what do I do?” He grabbed another rock from the ground
and tossed it into the water. “I pulled her outside, and I screamed at her. Told
her she was being an idiot.” He put his head down, between his knees. “And that
was it. She stormed back inside, and I went home. It's so stupid. If I could
have looked past my anger to see that she was sick, like
really
sick, I could have taken her out of there, and gotten her to
a hospital. If I could have been selfless for one fucking second...”

I scooted closer to him,
reached for his hand—but didn't take it. “I know. It’s the worst part
about all this. The thinking of what you could have done differently.”

He brought his head back up,
looked out at the ocean. “You’re right. I miss her, so much, but it’s the
knowing I could have saved her that just eats away at me.”

Evan jumped up, brushed the
sand off his ass. I got on my knees, and looked up at him. The bright, shining
sun hid his face.

“You all done with your
drink?” he asked.

“Uhh, yeah.” He picked up both
our cups and dropped them in the nearby trash can.

When he walked back over, he
helped me to my feet. “I’m sorry I’m dumping all this on you,” he said. “I
didn’t plan to, I promise.”

“No, don’t apologize. Have you
been able to talk about this? Like, with your family?”

He shook his head.

“Yeah, see. You can’t hold
all this in. You’re in pain. We both are.” I reached my hand out to him, again.
I don’t know what the intention was. Hold his hand? Feel his chest?

He finally set his hand on
mine, and pulled me close. My whole body tensed up. I wanted to kiss him, but not
today, not now. So when he hugged me and put his head on my shoulder, I
breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Syd,” he said.
“You’ve always been a good friend.”

“Yes,” I said. “A good
friend.”

We spent two more hours
walking along the beach. We brought up Melanie once in awhile but mostly used
the time to goof around and talk about food, family, movies—try to give
each other a needed break from the heartache. I was still reeling from
Melanie’s death, but it was probably five percent of the anguish Evan was
feeling. I did my best to cheer him up. At the end of our walk, I finally got
him to smile.

“You’re kidding! The whole
night?”

“He loves Meryl Streep,” I
said, as we approached the front of the Coffee Bean. “After I went to bed, he
started
Sophie’s Choice
! Who watches
Sophie’s Choice
at 1 AM on a Saturday
night?”

“To each his own, I guess. You
know what movie she's in that I love? It's called
Defending Your Life
, my mom showed it to me when I was little. Have
you ever seen it?”

“No, I haven't even heard of
that one.”

“It's about this guy who
dies, and he goes to this Heaven-like place where his life is examined, and he
falls in love. It's about taking chances.”

I shot him a tender smile. “Really?
I’d like to see it.”

“I have the DVD. Maybe I can
show it to you sometime.”

 
Going over to Evan’s and watching a movie
about death? It didn’t seem the smartest idea, but I would have said yes to a
Transformers
sequel if it meant spending
more time with him.

I approached my car. I hated
that it was so close to the coffeehouse. “So you like going to movies?” I
asked.

“Love it.”

“Really? All those mornings
before sociology, you never talked about them.”

He shrugged. “You never asked
me about them. I love movies. If you wanted to go see one sometime—”

“Friday, maybe? There's this
new Sandra Bullock movie that looks kind of interesting.”

He chuckled, and looked down
at the ground.

“What's wrong?” I asked. “You
don't like Sandra Bullock?”

“Syd, I want to get this out
in the open, so we’re both on the same page. All right?”

I leaned against my car.
Those words were never a good sign. “Okay...”

“I’m not looking for a
girlfriend right now. I’m not looking to date yet. What I really need right
now... is a friend. Is that okay?”

I grinned, and didn’t
hesitate. “Of course. It's what I want, too.” And I did. As much as I liked
Evan, driving to his house at that moment and getting all hot and sweaty, as
incredible as I know it would be, wouldn’t have felt right. We both needed each
other, and I didn’t want to do or say anything that would push him away.

“Good, I’m glad.” He hugged
me again, then went to open the door for me. He pulled on the handle.

“Oh,” I said. “Hold on, it's
locked.” I took out my keys and pressed the unlock button.

He opened the door. The
perfect gentleman.

“Thanks again for the
coffee,” I said. “This was fun.”

“Yes, it was. Talk to you
soon?”

“Sounds good.”

He leaned down, I thought to
hug me again. Instead, he kissed me on the cheek. “I'll see ya,” he said, and
walked across the parking lot, to his 4Runner.

I just stood there, at a loss
for words. I almost forgot to breathe.

When I finally said, “Bye,” seemingly
a thousand minutes later, he was already pulling out onto the street.

I sat in my car and turned on
the ignition. I switched on the radio. Marvin Gaye's “How Sweet It Is” was playing.
 

I backed up, and made a right
on Marina Pointe Drive. I rolled down the windows. Blasted the music. “Oh, how
sweet it is…” I said.
 

I sang the song out loud,
even though I knew Evan Taylor didn’t love me. Even though I knew nothing was
ever going to happen between us.

Or so I thought.

Chapter 19

Evan called me later that
night, and we talked for another hour. I learned more about him in that one day
than I did all of sophomore year. I loved that he was finally opening up to me,
despite the tragic circumstances.

We had coffee again on
Tuesday morning, then dinner on Friday, at a hole-in-the-wall Salvadorian restaurant
called El Paisano’s, where Evan introduced me to the wonders of the papusa. We
saw the newest Sandra Bullock drama—at the Arclight Hollywood, not the
Promenade—and kicked back at Yogurtland until it closed. And during the
car ride, and during the movie, and during the frozen yogurt, the whole time, I
kept waiting for him to make a move, despite what he told me in the Coffee Bean
parking lot. His hand grazed my leg a few times, and he gave me another kiss on
the cheek when he dropped me off. But nothing. He truly did just want to be
friends.

“It’s for the best,” Lukas
said, stepping out into the hallway from his bedroom.

“It’s not for the best, it’s
confusing, don’t you under—” I didn’t finish the sentence. I looked him
over from head to toe and laughed. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“What?” He looked down, like
nothing was wrong.

“Dude. You’re not wearing
that.”

I knew Lukas wanted to get
laid, but he didn’t have to try this hard. He wore a light pink tank top that
barely covered his chest, over the tightest of jeans that did its best to
accentuate his dinky rear end. The jeans were also rolled all the way up to his
knees, which made him look like he wanted to wade his way through not a sea of
cute twinks, but a flooded basement.

“What? I think I look cute!”
He ran over to the nearest mirror. Took off his glasses and inspected his face.
“Except for this zit I can’t pop for the life of me.” He pushed the tips of his
thumb and index finger over the pimple.

“Eww,” I said, looking away. “Don’t
be gross.”

“Sorry. Not all of us can be
born with perfect skin, Sydney.”
        

I didn’t have a comeback for
that. He was right; I was no Melanie in the looks department, but I had been
blessed with very little acne my whole life, aside from a terrible week in the
tenth grade when my face turned into Connect the Dots.
 
 

“I don’t care,” he said. He
gave up on the zit, and put his glasses back on. “I’m wearing it!”

“All right, whatever. You
coming?”

“Yeah, just let me grab my
phone.” He dropped his cell phone in his side pocket and walked toward me, his
flip-flops making a squishy sound on the hardwood floor. “So it's just the two
of us, right? He's
not coming, is
he?”

“Who?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Who do
you think?”

“Evan? To a
gay
bar?” I laughed.